Ends tomorrow

The Lower Mainland’s newest online marketplace will open on Monday, April 28, when LikeItBuyItVancouver.com begins previewing a limited-time sale of everything from household goods to consumer electronics to cruises, travel, cars, gift cards and personal services.

Opinion: University’s policies have been already declared legal by courts

Dwight Newman, professor of law at the University of Saskatchewan.

Is there room in Canada for real ideological and religious diversity in higher education? If Canada’s law deans had their way, the answer would seem doubtful.

Trinity Western University (TWU) is a privately funded religious university established as an evangelical Christian community.

In response to its current application process to open a law school, as reported in The Vancouver Sun, the Canadian Council of Law Deans sent to the Federation of Law Societies a letter to try to challenge TWU’s application, essentially because of the character and values of TWU as a religious community.

The sticking point is that TWU, as an evangelical Christian community, has all students who voluntarily enter the university sign on to a “community covenant agreement.” This agreement reflects a traditional Christian viewpoint, as interpreted within the TWU community. The covenant addresses many different matters. These include moderation in the consumption of alcohol, complete abstinence from alcohol and tobacco on campus, and abstinence from the use of pornography.

The law deans have latched on to a provision by which students voluntarily commit to abstinence “from sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman”.

Writing on behalf of the law deans’ council — and with no dissent apparent — Dean Bill Flanagan’s letter of Nov. 20 tries to “urge the Federation to investigate whether TWU’s covenant is inconsistent with federal or provincial law.” He also urges the Federation to consider the covenant’s “intentionally discriminatory impact on gay, lesbian and bi-sexual students when evaluating TWU’s application” to set up an approved law school.

Why the Federation of Law Societies is now responsible for “investigating” trumped-up allegations of violations of federal and provincial law is not clear. Trinity Western University’s policies have been before the Supreme Court of Canada previously, and the covenant does not violate the law. Beyond these oddities, though, the law deans’ statement sends worrying signals about what they think of Christian institutions operating in the sphere of higher education.

Trinity Western University is privately funded. Nobody forces any student to attend it. Students have many alternative law schools to attend. Students who do attend TWU are protected within the educational process from discrimination based on their identity, as Canadian law applies within the institution, and there is no barrier to those with any identity attending the school.

Those who do wish to be part of the community, whatever their identity, do have to agree to the community covenant. There will be internal theological differences about parts of the covenant, but students know its contents when they apply. It is a strict covenant for all students concerning not identity but behaviour. In a permissive and sexualized cultural era, many students will choose not to attend an institution limiting drinking, smoking, and sex. They do not have to go there, and they have many other choices. But those who wish to pursue legal education within such a religious context do not have any other options in Canada.

The United States has a number of law schools with codes of conduct with lifestyle elements very much like TWU’s. Among them, Baylor, Brigham Young, and Pepperdine are all in the top echelon of American law schools. And American legal education is richer for the diversity.

The Canadian Council of Law Deans statement puts all its weight on students who supposedly want to claim the right to enter into a religious community and then to violate the behavioural covenant of that community. They put no weight on the value of that community. Taken to their logical conclusions, the law deans’ arguments could just as easily prohibit a church itself from having behavioural expectations on its clergy.

The law deans stereotype a holistic Christian lifestyle statement into a statement about one issue for one group of people. For that matter, they also ignore the rich and ongoing internal dialogue underway in many evangelical Christian contexts about issues of sexuality. In their approach, they manifest an underlying anti-religious bias. Their very hounding of TWU’s new law school is itself good reason for TWU to have a law school and to thereby expand the diversity of Canadian legal education.

Dwight Newman is a professor of law at the University of Saskatchewan.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Latest updates

Former 2010 Olympics CEO John Furlong has dropped a defamation lawsuit against the journalist who wrote a story alleging he was verbally and physically rough on native students when he was a young teacher in Northern B.C. decades ago.

A new survey ranks Vancouver as the busiest city in Canada when it comes to traffic. The results, published in TomTom’s fifth annual Traffic Index, looks at 218 cities across the globe and ranks them based on how congested their roads can be during peak travel times throughout the day.